I learned I can never consider myself graduated to Master Brewer because of doing dumb things on occasion.
Yesterday for example . . . I brewed 11 gallons of a Pilsner Urquell clone. With my Therminator and well water I was able to get the wort down to 62 degrees. I placed the converted 1/2 barrel fermentor in the ferment chamber, right next to the 1/2 barrel fermentor that contained the Alaskan Smoked Porter clone I made last week to let it chill to 48 degrees for pitching. When the PU wort had chilled to 48, I got the bottle of O2 and SS stone ready to oxygenate and pitch.
Guess what . . I pulled the air lock on the Alaskan Smoked Porter and gave it a nice 20 sec blast of pure O2 before I realized what I had done. >:(
Oh no! Well, consider it an experiment in oxidizing beer. Since it’s only been a week the yeast might absorb some of it, and even if not it’s not a total loss. And if it tastes awful, maybe you can find someone to help you “concentrate” it.
I had a similar experience yesterday…I forgot to add bittering hops til 30 min. into the boil! I just added some more water to the kettle, tossed the hops in, and started the timer over at 60 min. But it’s not out fault, dhacker. My astrologer tells me the moon was in Feces.
I almost had one yesterday. After I start the boil my HLT becomes my chemical pot (e.g. I mix PBW into the hot water and start running the cleaning cycle). So, yesterday, while dead sober, went and grabbed the PBW, scooped out a tablespoon and walked right to the boil kettle.
Fortunately, my brain intercepted the signals to the hand and locked it long enough for me to go: “hmmm… that’s probably wrong”
Add some bonus sugars to aid in the use of the oxygen? So what if it turns out stronger than you had planned! You weren’t exactly going for a lawnmower beer, were you?
About a year and half ago during a Fecal Moon I threw my FWH into the mash tun of an English IPA…on top of the grain bed. So I just added 3/4 the amount of FWH I had orig planned. Then I forgot to add the flame-out hops. So I decided to try making a hop tea (my first) using a French Press. I boiled the hops for the tea and it made the beer very hazy so I gelatined it. But the gelatin didn’t really work very well. So it just sat in my keezer for a long time (long enough to clear) until I finally just wanted it out of there so I bottled the rest from the keg. My efficiency was way off so my OG was low and I originally calculated the IBU’s using the AA value for my ‘old bag’ of Willamette…but I was using the ‘new bag’ of Willamette. A comedy of errors all on one batch.
It won gold in last year’s NHC…as an ESB. 8) I still can’t make that beer again.
Two weeks ago I was racking my bohem dunkel out of primary into a keg through the beer out post… only problem was, it wasn’t connected to the out post, but to the gas in post!
I was doing some cleanup also, and went over to check how the racking was going. Well, there was a huge amount of foam on account of dropping 2 or 3 gallons of beer a few feet to the bottom of the keg. man… what a goof. These things always seem to happen to the beers that you expect the most from too!
After about 15 minutes of pulling, cursing, and prying, I finally got the dang QD off the post and back onto the correct post. Keg is now sitting at 35 degrees; so far, no off flavors but I’m drinking it fast just in case. Fortunately I had purged the keg with CO2 so that will help delay problems.
This is why I don’t drink when I brew; the distractions of wife and kids can scramble my brain without help.
